Abandoned Altars

There’s an elephant quietly sitting in the nave that everyone on all sides of the clergy sex abuse crisis have been diligently ignoring, even the victims themselves. No clergy or even would-be reformers have really remarked on it yet, although it should be more obvious with each and every sad story. More importantly, it is a troubling issue that touches on the very heart and soul of Catholicism.

The monstrous truth is simply this: what the clergy sex abuse crisis clearly demonstrates is that the sacramental system has failed.

This is not just a case of hierarchical reneging of responsibility. There’s more to this than some bad apples. This is nothing that a few reforms can fix, some screening of seminarians or more pastoral responses by bishops. It is nothing less than a fundamental challenge to the entire Catholic Church, and it shows that the spiritual principles the whole structure is supposedly based on simply do not work.

Think about it. The offenders here are Roman Catholic priests, highly trained men. But unlike other professionals, these men are supposedly set apart and dedicated to lives of the spirit. They claim to have the power to forgive sins and make God appear.

They not only administer the sacraments to others, but also receive them themselves daily. That means, among other things, frequent confession to other priests. Moreover, many of these men belong to religious orders or are otherwise under close spiritual direction. They are supposed to confide everything to their confessors and superiors and to obey them unquestioningly.

So what went wrong? When an abusive priest goes to confession, does he start, “Bless me, father, for I have sinned: I buggered an altar boy three times this week”? And does the confessor tell him to say 3 Our Fathers and 4 Hail Marys and not to do it again?

According to their own theory, confessors have the power to forgive sins, but also to refuse to do so if sorrow is insufficient. Moreover, they are to appoint penances - if they wish, they can require satisfaction or significant signs of reform from the penitent before absolution. Some sins - such as solicitation for sex in the confessional - are even deemed so serious that only higher prelates, sometimes only the Pope or his appointed delegate can forgive them.

Yet the abusers continue to abuse. So are the sexually active priests lying to their confessors? This would mean that not only do the perpetrating priests remain in a state of mortal sin and are automatically excommunicated, they perform the sacraments in that state which is itself a grave sacrilege.

Or, even worse, are all the abusive priests linked? Do they only go to confession to like-minded perps who will understand? Is there then an organized network of sexually perpetrating priests, all busily enabling each other? This adds collusion and conspiracy to the sin and would indicate that the very structure itself is rotten to the core.

The evidence available suggests that perhaps both scenarios are true to varying degrees in different situations. Either way, however, the result is much the same.

The sacraments are meant to unite believers with Christ. Not just to remove the accumulations of sin like the weekly laundry, but to gradually improve the recipient. They are intended to sanctify and uplift the faithful, increase devotion to God, charity to fellow humans, and moral stamina in the face of evil.

If the sacraments actually worked like this, wouldn’t we hear ennobling stories of clerical reform, of some molester inspired to truly repent and devote himself to the cause? But rather, the stories are depressingly the same, of priests caught time and again, transferred, treated, and now finally, laicized often against their will, with no regret or even acknowledgement of their evil.

What this means, each person must decide in their own conscience. But perhaps the fall off in confessions over the years itself tells the story. Why should anyone, lay or not, risk a ritual that seems so impotent in promoting reform and may, instead of granting grace, actually expose them to greater human wickedness?